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Coexistence, Conversion, and the Crusade against the Turks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

Robert H. Schwoebel*
Affiliation:
Temple University
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Extract

Although historians of the Turks and Turkishwestern relations have long known and used the works of fifteenth-century Latin writers dealing with the Ottoman menace, students of Renaissance intellectual history have until recently paid them scant attention. Paul Oskar Kristeller wrote in 1956 that 'compositions in prose and in verse against the Turks represent a considerable body of literary production in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that has never been listed, let alone studied'.The explanation for this neglect lies largely in the history of the last hundred years of historiography but involves, among other considerations, the reactions of historians to the peculiar requirements of Quattrocento style.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1965

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References

1 Kristeller, Paul Oskar, Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters (Rome, 1956), p. 112, n. 51.Google Scholar

2 On the etymology and Renaissance definitions of the word ‘barbarian’ see Denys Hay, ‘Italy and Barbarian Europe', Italian Renaissance Studies: a Tribute to the Late Cecilia M. Ady, ed. E. F. Jacob (London, i960), pp. 48-68. The humanists particularly made much of the destruction of books as showing Turkish barbarism, e.g., Lauro Quirini, 'Oratio de urbis Constantinopolis jactura et captivitate', in Giovanni degli Agostini, Notizie istorico-critiche intorno la vita e le opere degli scrittori viniziani (Venice, 1752), I, 218, and the often-quoted lament of Aeneas Sylvius in Der Briefwechsel des Eneas Silvius Piccolomini, ed. R. Wolkan (Vienna, 1918, Fontes rerum Austricamm, Abt. II, vol. 68, Bd. 1), no. 109, p. 200.

3 E.g. Giovanni Mario Filelfo, Amyris, ed. P. A. Dethier in Monumenta Hungariae historica, XXII, pt. I, no. ix, pp. 309-319, 405, 453 (volumes xxii and xxiii comprise documents relating to the fall of Constantinople and were printed in Budapest but were suppressed and never officially published); cf. T. J. B. Spencer, ‘Turks and Trojans in the Renaissance', Modern Language Rev. XLVII (1952), 330-333. But compare Andrea Cambini, Delia origine de’ Turchi (Venice, 1538), f. 2r , who while admitting the wide currency of the Trojan theory emphatically denies it.

4 Cf. the remarks of Gilmore, M. P., The World of Humanism, 1453-1517 (New York, 1952), p. 21 Google Scholar; Mattingly, G., Catherine of'Atagon (London, 1941), p. 5 Google Scholar; D. Vaughan, Europe and the Turk: a Pattern of Alliances, 1350-1700 (Liverpool, 1954), pp. vii, 25.

5 Scritti inediti di Benedetto Colucci da Pistoia, ed. A. Frugoni (Florence, 1939), pp. 1-47. Francesco Filelfo's student, Lapo Birago da Castiglionchio, dedicated a crusade plan, Strategetica, to Nicholas v (see G. Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, Milan, 1824, vi, ii, 1206,1207); cf. the student exercises on the Turkish threat published by Thuasne, L. in Djem-sultan, fils de Mohammed II,frere de Bayezid II, 1459-1495 (Paris, 1892), pp. 434-437.Google Scholar For Ficino's own anti-Turkish orations see Opera omnia (photographic reprint of the Basel edition of 1576, Turin, 1959), 1, ii, 721, 722, 808-810.

6 Vaughan, op. cit., is a convenient summary, but for detailed studies see Franz Babinger, Mahomet II le Conquer ant et son temps (Paris, 1954), and his numerous studies in the publications of the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften and elsewhere, especially his ‘Lorenzo de’ Medici e la corte ottomano', Archivio storico italiano CXX (1963), 305-361, with copious references.

7 Fratris Pauli Waltheri Guglingensis itinerarium in Terram Sanctam et ad Sanctam Catharinam, ed. M. Sollweck (Tübingen, 1892), pp. 58, 59.

8 Cotntnentum et apparatus super bulla privationis et depositionis Georgii regis Bohemiae, cited in R. H. Trame, Rodrigo Sanchez de Arevalo, 1404-1470 (Washington, 1958), pp. 165, 166; Luca Landucci, A Florentine Diary from 1450 to 1516, tr. Alice de Rosen Jervis (London, 1927), p. 161.

9 This letter was patterned after a false epistle addressed to Pope Clement vi by one Morbassan. It was often copied by anonymous publicists who accommodated its substance to their own purposes. The text I quote was copied into the Memoires of Jacques du Clercq (Choix de chroniques et mémoires, ed. J. A. C. Buchon, Paris, 1838, v, 86); it is also found appended to Jacopo Tedaldi's account of the fall of Constantinople (see M. L. Concasty, ‘Les “Informations” de Jacques Tedaldi sur le siege et la prise de Constantinople', Byzantion XXIV, 1954, 95-110) and in the Chronique de Mathieu d'Escouchy, ed. G. du Fresne de Beaucourt (Paris, 1863, Soc. de l'histoire de France), n, 58-61; cf. N. Iorga, ‘Notes et extraits', Revue de l'orient latin VIII (1900-1901), 298-299. The letter was probably composed at one of the courts hostile to Venice and its chief purpose seems to have been that of anti-Venetian propaganda.

10 L., Thuasne, Gentile Bellini et Sultan Mohammed II (Paris, 1888)Google Scholar; cf. F. Babinger, ‘Ein vorgeblicher Gnadenbrief Mehmeds n. für Gentile Bellini', Italia medioevale e umanistica v (1962), 85-101.

11 Babinger, Mahomet II, pp. 242, 243, 613-615, and his ‘Mehmed 11 und Italien', Byzcmtion xxi (1951), 127-170. Cf. E. Jacobs, ‘Die Mehmmed-Medaille des Bertoldo', Jahrbuch der preussischen Kunstsammlungen XLVIII (1927), 1-18, and the same author's 'Mehmmed n Beziehungen zur Renaissance', Oriens 11 (1949), 7-30. See also F. Sarre, 'Michelangelo und der turkische Hof, Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft XXXII (1909), 61 ff.

12 G. Soranzo, ‘Una Missione de Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta a Maometto n nel 1461', Romagna ni (1902); Babinger, Mahomet II, pp. 242, 243.

13 In S. Baluze, Miscellanea (Lucca, 1762), III, cols. 113, 114.

14 For contemporary reports on Turkish military prowess, administration, government, and personal qualities cf. N. Barbaro, Journal du siège de Constantinople in Monumenta Hungariae historia, XXII, pt. 2; G. M. Angiolello, Historia turchesca, attributed by the editor, I. Ursu, to Donado da Lezze (Bucharest, 1910); Jacopo de Promontorio de Campis, Stato del Gran Turco, ed. F. Babinger in Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Heft 8 (1956); Bertrandon de la Broquiere, Le Voyage d'outremer, ed. C. Schefer (Paris, 1892). The character and ability of Mehmed 11 was widely disputed in the west, but Commines at least ranked him among the foremost rulers of his day in wisdom and valor (Mèmoires, ed. Mile. Dupont, Paris, 1847, n, 285).

15 Vaughan, op. cit., pp. 25-29, 66.

16 Cf. N.Daniel, Islam and the West: the Making of an Image (Edinburgh, 1958), p. 381; and the remarks of A. Apponyi, Lectures on the Peace Program and the Constitutional Growth of Hungary (Budapest, 1911), p. 51.

17 Des Türken Vastnachtspil in Fastnachtspiele aus demfiinfzehntenfahrhundert (Bibliothek des litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, 1853), pp. 288-304. Moreover, a later work by Rosenbliit, Von den Türken, was a direct appeal for a crusade as even Vaughan admits (op. cit., pp. 28, 29).

18 La Broquière, op. cit., p. 248.

19 For the rôle of the crusaders see J. Hofer, Giovanni da Capistrano: una vita spesa nella lottaper la riforma delta chiesa, tr. from the German by Giacomo di Fabio (Aquila, 1955), pp. 652-682; cf. F. Babinger, ‘Der Quellenwert der Berichte iiber den Entsatz von Belgrad am 21./22. Juli 1456', Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Philosophisch-Historische Klasse), Heft 6 (1957), 1-69.

20 Princes and political publicists, of course, habitually defamed a rival by comparing him with the Turk, often to the latter's advantage. For this habit as taken up by Reformation polemicists see S. C. Chew, The Crescent and the Rose (New York, 1937), pp. 101, 102, n. 1.

21 It should be noted that while there was still some hope of reconciliation with Rome, George was sympathetic to the idea of the papal crusade. See N. Iorga, ‘Un Auteur des projets de croisades, Antoine Marini', Etudes d'histoire du moyen âge dédiées á Gabriel Monod (Paris, 1896), pp. 445-457.

22 H. Markgraf, ‘Über Georgs von Podiebrad Project eines christlichen Fürstenbundes', Historische Zeitschrift xxi (1869), 245-304.

23 See G. E. Rothenberg, ‘Aventinus and the Defense of the Empire against the Turks', Studies in the Renaissance x (1963), 60-67.

24 Ulrich von Hutten, ‘Ad principes germanos ut bellum in Turcas concorditer suscipiant exhortatoria', Opera, ed. E. Böcking (Leipzig, 1861), v, 101-103, 123, 124.

25 Ibid, v, 106-114, 121, 130, 131. It is worth noting that German patriots were not alone in stressing the role of the emperor in the war against the Turks; e.g. Michael Apostolis, ‘Oratio acclamatoria, ad religiosissimum et serenissimum Romanorum imperatorem … Fridericum m', Returngermankarum scriptores, ed. B.G.Struve (Strassburg, 1717), II, cols. 47-50, appealed to the philosophic principle of necessity (adrasteia), the historical theory of cyclical change, and the authority of oracles as proof that Frederick was destined to triumph over the Turks and appoint his son Maximilian as ruler of Byzantium. See discussion in D. J. Geanakoplos, Greek Scholars in Venice (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), pp. 96-99.

26 E.g. M. T. d'Alverny, ‘Deux traductions latines du Coran au moyen âge', Archives iPhistoire doctrinale et litterairc du moyen âge XVI (1948), 63-131; J. Kritzeck, Peter the Venerable and Islam (Princeton, 1964); N. Daniel, Islam and the West (Edinburgh, 1958), with an extensive bibliography on the subject.

27 R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), pp. 85, 86.

28 George of Trebizond wrote in his Comparationes phylosophorum Aristotelis et Platonis (Venice, 1523), sig. v6v: ‘Audiui ego ipsum Florentise, uenit enim ad concilium cum gratis, asserentem unam eandemque religionem, uno animo, una mente, una praedicatione, uniuersum orbem, paucis post annis esse suscepturum. Cumqwe rogassem, christine an machumeti? neutram inquit, sed non a gentilitate, differentem.’ Cited by M. Creighton, A History of the Papacy (London, 1897), IV, 42.

29 E. Troeltsch, The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, tr. Olive Wyon (New York, 1960), 1, 336-348.

30 Cited by Brock, P., The Political and Social Doctrines of the Unity of Czech Brethren in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries (The Hague, 1957), p. 93, n. 44.Google Scholar

31 On Italus see Williams, G. H., The Radical Reformation (Philadelphia, 1962), pp. 18, 19, 255.Google Scholar The tale of his stay in Turkey and the vision is found in Elsass, I: Stadt Strassburg, 1522-1532, ed. M. Krebs and J. Rott (Gütersloh, 1959, Quellen zur Geschichte der Taufer VII), nos. 205, 206a. The same experience is identified with the prophetic preacher Francesco da Meleto. Williams suggests that Italus and Meleto may have been the same person. Cf. D. Cantimori, Eretici italiani dei cinquecento (Florence, 1939), pp. 14-16, and D. Bongi, ‘Francesco da Meleto, un profeta fiorentino a’ tempi del Machiavelli', Archivio storico italiano, ser. 5, III (1889), 62 ff.

32 Cf. the views of Michael Sattler and Sebastian Franck in Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers, ed. G. H. Williams (Philadelphia, 1957, Library of Christian Classics xxv), pp. 141, 150, 156.

33 The prologue to the now missing translation is printed in D. Cabanelas Rodriguez, Juan de Segovia y el problema isldtnko (Madrid, 1952), appendix III, pp. 279-302. In it Segovia explained his philological method and described his unsuccessful search for a Christian Arabic scholar to help him. On the latter see N. Daniel, op. cit., and K. H. Dannenfeldt, ‘The Renaissance Humanists and the Knowledge of Arabic', Studies in the Renaissance II (1955), 96-117, neither of whom mentions Segovia.

34 Quoted in Cabanelas, op. cit., p. III. Segovia's program was worked out in detail in his unpublished De mittendo gladio Divini Spiritus in corda saracenomm (summary in Cabanelas, appendix 1, pp. 265-272), and in Segovia's letters to Nicholas of Cusa, Jean Germain, Aeneas Sylvius (Pius II), and an anonymous friend, ibid., appendices iv, vi, VII, IX, X, XI.

35 Letter of Segovia to Nicholas of Cusa, 2 December 1454, ibid., pp. 303-310, where Juan stressed his actual experience in doctrinal discussions, as well as historical and scriptural examples, as proof of the validity of his approach; cf. Cabanelas, pp. 93-125, for detailed analysis of all the relevant texts.

36 Vansteenberghe, E., Le Cardinal Nicolas de Cues, 1401-1464 (Paris, 1920), pp. 227-234.Google Scholar See the preface of R. Klibansky and H. Bascour to their edition of De pace fidei (London, 1956, Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies, Supplement in), pp. IX-LIII. Cusa's reply to Segovia, 29 December 1454 (ibid., pp. 93-102, and Cabanelas, op. cit., appendix v, pp. 311-318), includes information on the cardinal's longstanding interest in the problem as well as a discussion of Segovia's program and some specific suggestions for implementing it.

37 Nicholas of Cusa, Cribratio Alchorani in Oeuvres choisies de Nicolas de Cues, ed. M. de Gandillac (Mesnil, 1942), pp. 503-505.

38 Letter of Cusa to Segovia, 29 December 1454, in Cabanelas, op. cit., pp. 317, 318.

39 De pacefidei, pp. 3,4. Cf. P. E. Sigmund, Nicholas Cusa and Medieval Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), pp. 293-295; E. F. Jacob, ‘Nicholas of Cusa', in The Social and Political Ideas of Some Great Thinkers of the Renaissance and Reformation, ed. F. J. C. Hearnshaw (New York, 1949), pp. 32-60; and B. Decker, ‘Die Toleranzidee bei Nikolaus von Kues und in der Neuzeit', in Nicold Cusano, Relazioni presentate al Convegno Interuniversitario di Bressanone (Florence, 1962), pp. 5-24.

40 F. Copleston, A History qf Philosophy, III: Late Mediaeval and Renaissance Philosophy (Image Books edition, New York, 1963), pt. n, p. 39.

41 Islam and the West, pp. 275, 276. But it must be said in all fairness that the study of Islam in our period has yet to receive the thorough examination which Daniel has given to the middle ages. Together with the growing interest in religion and oriental languages, the advance of the Ottomans stimulated the study of their history and particularly their origin. Nicolas Sagundino, De turcarum origine (Viterbo, 1531), written in 1454 or 1456 for Aeneas Sylvius, and Theodore Gaza's work with the same title (in J. B. Migne, Patrologia, series Graeca, CLXI, cols. 997-1006), addressed to Francesco Filelfo, were early responses to a question which has continued to interest modern scholars: e.g. W. L. Langer and R. P. Blake, ‘The Rise of the Ottoman Turks and its Historical Background', American Historical Rev. XXXVII (1932), 468-505; M. Faud Kopriilii, Les Origines de V empire ottoman (Paris, 1935), and Wittek, P., The Rise of the Ottoman Empire (London, 1938).Google Scholar

42 E.g. R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam, pp. 98-103, and G. Toffanin, Lettera a Maometta II (Naples, 1953), pp. xxiv-lvii, text of the ‘Epistola ad Mahumeten', pp. I09-177.

43 R.J. Mitchell, The Laurels and the Tiara: Pope Pius II, 1458-1464 (London, 1962), p.171.

44 E.g. Aeneas Sylvius, Opera omnia (Basel, 1571), pp. 905-914, and for a concise statement of his views on Islam see The Commentaries of Pius II, ed. and tr. F. A. Gragg and L. C. Gabel (Northampton, Mass., 1936-1957, Smith College Studies in History xxn, xxv, xxx, xxxv, XLIII), bk. II, 127. In general see R. Eysser, ‘Papst Pius II und der Kreuzzug gegen die Turken', Melanges d'histoireginerale II (Bucharest, 1938), 1-134.

45 E.g. Laudivio Zacchia, Epistolae Magni Turd (Naples, 1473).

46 Iorga, N. , Byzance aprls Byzance (Bucharest, 1935), pp. 25-27.Google Scholar

47 ‘Epistola ad Turcarum imperatorem', cited in Leclercq, J., Un Humaniste ermite: le Bienheureux Paul Giustiniani (1476-1528) (Rome, 1951), pp. 76, 158.Google Scholar

48 Sebastian Franck, Das verbüthschierte mitsieben Sigeln verschtossene Buch (1539), quoted in J. Lecler, Toleration and the Reformation, tr. T. L. Westow (London, 1960), 1, 175; cf. Franck's letter to John Campanus in Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers, ed. G. H. Williams; Erasmus, Querela pads, in Opera omnia (Leyden, 1703), IV, 638.

49 Letter of Johannes Blanchus to Galeazzo Maria Sforza, 29 February 1468, in L. Pastor, History of the Popes (4th edition, London, 1923), IV, appendix 21, 490-491. Blanchus also reported, ‘… dice che questi ribaldi [the humanist opponents of the pope] hano qualche volta dicto de volere andare ad trovare el Turco et ch’ unaltro de questi scolari che al presente e a Venetia fin l'anno passato ando ad Venetia per volere deinde andare ad trovare el Turcho… .'

50 E.g. Suma de lapolltica, ed. Juan Beneyto Perez (Madrid, 1944); Depace et hello, excerpts printed in G. Butler, Studies in Statecraft (Cambridge, 1920), appendix A. See Butler's chapter, ‘Bishop Roderick and Renaissance Pacificism', ibid., pp. 1-25; T. Toni, ‘El tratado Depace et hello de Don Rodrigo Sanchez de Arevalo', Razdn y fe CXI (1936), 37- 50; and R. H. Trame, op. cit., pp. 82, 83, 182-195. Perhaps Arevalo's last work was his Epistola lugubris et maesta simul et consolatoria de infelice expugnatione insulae Euboye dictae Nigropontis (Rome, 1470?), listed under Rodericus Zamorensis in F. R. Goff, Incunabula in American Libraries (New York, 1964).

51 ‘The Triumph of Fame', in The Triumphs of Petrarch, tr. E. H. Wilkins (Chicago, 1962), p. 84.

52 A Shorte Treatise vpon the Turkes Chronicles, tr. Peter Ashton (London, 1546).

53 See P. Becker, Giuliano Cesarini (Kallmünz, 1935); L. Gomez Canedo, Un Espafiol al servicio de la santa sede, Don Juan de Carvajal (Madrid, 1947); L. Mohler, Kardinal Bessarion, 1 (Paderborn, 1923).

54 Letter to Charles vn, 15 February 1451, in MonumentaHungariae historica, XXII, pt. 1, no. 10, pp. 503-552; ‘Oratio ad sacrosanctum ecclesiae Romanae pontificem Pium 11. Mantuae congregato Consistorio publico, assistentibus Duce Mediolanensi, et oratoribus regnum et principum 1459', in G. B. Mitarelli, Bibliotheca codicum manuscriptorum tnonasterii S. Michaelis Venetiarum (Venice, 1779), cols. 888-893; letter to Demetrius Chalcondylas in Cent-dix letters grecques de Francois Filelfe, ed. E. Legrand (Paris, 1892), no. n o , pp. 190-194.

55 R. Gaguin, La Met des croniques et miror historial de France (Paris, 1530?), f. clxiv; Roberti Gaguni epistole et orationes, ed. L. Thuasne (Paris, 1904), 11, 291-299.

56 Zedler, G., Die Maimer Ablassbriefe derjahre 1454 und 1455 (Mainz, 1913), pp. 1-14.Google Scholar

57 Das erste gedruckte Buck Gutenbergs in deutscher Sprache, ed. J. Neuhaus (Copenhagen, 1902); Türkenkalender aufdasjahr 1455, ed. A. Bieling (Vienna, 1873); cf. C. Wehmer, Maimer Probedrucke (Munich, 1948).

58 For the Bessarion-Fichet correspondence see Cent-dix lettres, ed. E. Legrand, nos. 1- 12, pp. 223-251; seventeen of Fichet's dedicatory letters comprise nos. 15-31, pp. 256- 289.

59 Printed in Legrand, E., Bibliographie hellenique ou description raisonnee des ouvrages publics en grecpar desgrecs au XV” et XVI” siecles (Paris, 1885)Google Scholar, I, 106-112, and in part in Geanakoplos, Greek Scholars in Venice, pp. 152, 153.

60 Firmin-Didot, A., Aide Manuce et Vhellenisme a Venise (Paris, 1875), pp. 142-144.Google Scholar Cf. William Caxton's prologue to his Godeffroy of Boloyne (1481), ed. M. N. Colvin (London, 1893, E.E.T.S.E.S. LXIV), pp. 1-5.

61 Many such works are now listed in C. Gollner, Turcica: Die europaischen Ttirkendrucke des XVI. Jahrhunderts, I: 1501-1550 (Berlin, 1961), and W. Sturminger, Bibliographie und Ikonographie der Tiirkenbelagerungen Wiens 1529 und 1683 (Graz, 1955). 62 Guillaume Caoursin, Obsidionis Rhodiae urbis descriptio, tr. John Kay (London, 1483). Some idea of the popularity of such works may be seen by the fact that Caoursin's narrative was printed ten times in the three years 1480-1483, in Latin: Venice, 1480, Parma, 1480, Bruges, 1480, Passau, 1480, Barcelona (?), 1481, Rome, 1482, Odense, 1482; in German: Passau, 1480/1481; in English: London, 1483; in Italian: Venice, 1480. See Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (Leipzig, 1934), vi, 114-117.